


Something Just Like This

by TinyPeaches



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-29 01:28:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13916457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinyPeaches/pseuds/TinyPeaches
Summary: “Chiaki is wearing his ‘troubled’ face…” Kanata says, leaning down at him. He smiles softly and takes a seat by his side. Chiaki offers a waning smile in return and they sit like that for a while, shoulders touching as they gaze out at the eventide horizon before them. Splashes of red and blue on the edge of the world. The sun dips low and kisses the sea.





	Something Just Like This

**Author's Note:**

> this is just 1k of me trying to wax poetic lol
> 
> title is from the chainsmokers/coldplay song

_Two weeks ago, Chiaki asked Kanata to stay with him._

 

The sun’s rays felt heavy. The goldenrod dusk clung to his skin like oil and the usual soothing warmth of the light stung like hot coal. It burned. The cool sea breeze should’ve been refreshing, but instead it felt stifling and dry. His lungs were filled with smoke, and Chiaki found it hard to breathe.

A few hours ago, he was at the top of the world _—_ no, the top of the universe, they were stars after all—smiling with all of RYUSEITAI, sharing bittersweet tears.

Now, sitting alone at the beach, _truly_ alone, the bravado he put up as their confident leader fell. It came off like a well-worn mask, set aside to be forgotten, never to be worn again like his high school uniform. He fiddled with his boutonniere idly, rolling the withering stem between his fingers. He was a sand castle built on the beach, too close to the water’s edge. The tide reached its greedy hands towards Morisawa Chiaki: hero, leader, Ryusei Red, and swept him away as if taking back what the mother ocean rightfully owned.

 

He only got this far because of all the people around him. His friends, his precious underclassmen, his _ocean_. The self-doubt that plagued his mind for his first two years of high school rose up in his throat like gasoline set ablaze, and he choked on ash.

He wanted to believe himself a hero, he really did. But the cowardly thoughts crept up behind him like villains in the night. He couldn’t find the courage to face them. _Shameful, shameful._

 

The finality of graduation sunk in Chiaki’s gut like a lead weight. All throughout his final, _blessed_ year, he was radiant. Chiaki was always burning up from the inside out. It was a healthy kind of fire, the cleansing and liberating kind. He was a supernova shining with passion and love, a true _hero_ who unabashedly chased his childish utopia.

But all flames eventually burn out. He didn’t know what the future would hold. He was not a genius. He was not rich, nor was be influential. He was not talented or strong or charismatic. He was not a leader anymore. The flames that engulfed his identity as _Ryusei Red, the red flames of justice,_  consumed him. And as the inferno took its toll, no trace of Chiaki was left behind.

In the end, he wasn’t a meteor or shooting star like he'd thought. He was a house fire, an extravagant self-destructing spectacle that only left tattered remains and darkness in its wake as its audience moved on.

 

_Two weeks ago, Chiaki asked Kanata to stay with him._

 

Chiaki was weak on his own. Timid, unmotivated, a pushover, the complete opposite of a hero.

How could he? To ask even more from Kanata, to tie him to the land where _he doesn't belong_ , to desperately cling onto him for fear of the future?

Kanata has always supported Chiaki. He was the perfect complement to his naive whims. Steady as the moon’s orbit, gravitational pull easing Chiaki’s reckless storms into a steady rhythm. He had given him everything, and Chiaki has given Kanata nothing except heavy shackles of charred coal. _Heroes aren’t selfish like me._

He hugs his knees closer to his chest and tries to make himself smaller, a grain of sand on the beach. He's not worthy of being anything bigger.

 

A shadow lingers over him and he feels a light _chop_ to the top of his head. He looks up and muddied amber clashes with gleaming emerald.

 

“Chiaki is wearing his ‘troubled’ face…” Kanata says, leaning down at him. He smiles softly and takes a seat by his side. Chiaki offers a waning smile in return and they sit like that for a while, shoulders touching as they gaze out at the eventide horizon before them. Splashes of red and blue on the edge of the world. The sun dips low and kisses the sea.

 

Chiaki speaks, a ripple in still waters.

 

“The kids will be just fine without us. I believe in them.” He says with a hint of melancholy. “They have each other and their friends.”

 

Kanata doesn’t reply. He hums, closes his eyes, and listens. He listens to the sounds of Chiaki’s voice intertwining with the ebb and flow.

 

“They’ll do great.” Chiaki’s smile falters and he averts his eyes from the scalding spotlight of the bright, judging sun. “But…”

 

Chiaki doubts. He doubts himself, his capabilities, his future. “I’m not anyone special. I’m alone now, with no one to lead.” Chiaki knew that he was not RYUSEITAI’s savior. _They_ were the ones that saved him.

 

“I’m not anyone admirable. I’m not super talented, or strong, or smart. I’m not confident. I was always someone who was never good enough, and I’m still not.”

 

“They...really saved me, you know? They forced responsibility onto me. They forced me to take the reins and finally be a leader. To finally _act_ the part.” Even when at first, his grins and laughs were embarrassingly forced. But with time, even he began to believe.

 

But he was _himself_. He, who was too scared to take action until the room filled with gas. Then he was given a push, a spark that caused the explosion. And he burned, loudly and brightly, until the fuel has run dry. And it’s gone, and he is left with the haunting echoes of an abandoned bonfire. He felt empty.

 

“RYUSEITAI made me into a hero.”

 

Chiaki’s voice trails off, like the tails of smoke lost in the wind.

 

“But now it’s just me.”

 

The sea breeze stings and he reaches up to rub his eye. His hand comes away wet. He sniffs and rubs his sleeve over his face to no avail, the dam finally breaking.

 

“I’m sorry for binding you to me. I made you follow my ridiculous dreams and forced you to deal with me. I’m sorry, Kanata. No matter how I look at it, I’m not worthy of being a—”

 

“—Chiaki is ‘not’ a hero.”

 

Chiaki’s mouth clamps shut when cool hands suddenly squish his cheeks together.

 

“I am ‘done’ listening.” Kanata states matter-of-factly. He turns to face Chiaki fully. His eyes are wide and clear, two polished mirrors. Chiaki sees himself in them, a wilting gray in a forest of verdant green.

 

“Chiaki is ‘not’ a hero.” He repeats. Chiaki opens his mouth to say something, but Kanata pouts and squishes his cheeks harder. _Just listen to me._ “But Chiaki gave me a ‘family’, a ‘home’, a ‘purpose’.”

 

“Chiaki is a ‘crybaby’. Chiaki does not like ‘eggplants’. Chiaki is ‘scared’ of the dark.”

 

Kanata rambles without giving him a chance to respond. The water’s ripples are growing in volume, a brewing torrent.

 

“Chiaki ‘likes’ basketball. Chiaki ‘likes’ to watch sentai. Chiaki is ‘loud’ and ‘silly’. Chiaki is ‘honest’ and ‘kind’.”

 

He speaks each statement slowly. Kanata, who is an enigma who bathes in unspoken words, repeats his name like a mantra. Unfiltered thoughts spill over his lips like rain from the clouds.

 

“Chiaki cares about the ‘children’. Chiaki is ‘dedicated’ to doing good. Chiaki is ‘brave’ and strong, but also ‘gentle’. Chiaki doesn’t give up. Chiaki is ‘accepting’. Chiaki is ‘understanding’. Chiaki _‘cares_ ’.”

 

“Chiaki is _Chiaki._  And that is all ‘I’ need.”

 

Kanata’s final statement flowers on his tongue sweetly like candy, said with a sort of admiration and tenderness that calmed even the harshest of maelstroms. And just like that, the tranquil stillness sets in like a blanket of mist. Kanata’s hands cup his face, and he uses his thumbs to brush the tears away. How ironic, for Kanata to be the one “drying off” Chiaki when it’s usually the other way around. _I do not need a hero. I need you._

 

“Do you ‘remember’ our promise?”

 

Chiaki nods, breathless. He could never forget, even if he tried. On that day, the sunset bathed them in the aged sepia of a photograph. They pinky-swore then, their fingers intertwined like tree roots dipped in copper.

 

“I ‘promised’ to help you reach your ‘dream’,” He pauses thoughtfully, a lull as the waves recede. The ocean takes a breath before its waters surge outwards, an exhale. “but it is ‘your’ turn to grant me a ‘wish’.”

 

Chiaki swallows and nods again, words failing him.

 

He took his hand in his. “We will be ‘fine’.”

 

_We._

 

“Wherever we ‘go’... whatever we ‘do’,” Kanata smiles slowly, softly, this time his eyes reflecting molten gold. He brings Chiaki’s hand to his chest. His heart beats like a drum, and Chiaki is mesmerized by its familiar tune _._ The steady push-pull of the sea’s surface. “...To the ‘edges’ of the universe and the ‘depths’ of the sea...we have ‘each other’ just like this.”

 

_Two weeks, ago Chiaki asked Kanata to stay with him._

 

Their lips meet, and Kanata drowns him. Chiaki can breathe again.

 

“Let me ‘stay’ by your side.”


End file.
